We recently caught up with Duke alum Charlie McSpadden T’10, producer of the 2024 romantic comedy A Nice Indian Boy. The film, produced with Levantine Films and starring Karan Soni (Deadpool) and Jonathan Groff (Frozen, Hamilton), is set for a nationwide theatrical release on April 4 and will be screening at Durham’s AMC Southpoint starting April 10.
The film follows Naveen (Soni) as he brings his fiancé Jay (Groff) home to meet his traditional Indian family who, as the film’s logline explains, “must contend with accepting Naveen’s white-orphan-artist boyfriend and helping them plan the Indian wedding of their dreams.” The cast also includes Sunita Mani (“Everything Everywhere All At Once,” “Spirited”), Zarna Garg (“Zarna”) and Harish Patel (“Eternals,” “Four Weddings and a Funeral”).
Read below to learn about Charlie’s role at Levantine Films, his experience working on this project, and more!
At Levantine, I read & review all sorts of material—“available” projects which need creative producers to come aboard and shepherd from the earliest stage onward, “packaged” projects that already have producers, directors and often cast and are looking for production financing as well as books, plays, podcasts, documentaries, articles, life rights & other types of intellectual property that could be adapted into a film or television show. We don’t take on many projects as we are a small (but mighty) team and want to be sure we feel emotionally connected to and compelled by the material and have enough time & bandwidth to successfully push the projects into production. Once a project that I’m running point on advances to the production stage, I transition to being the on-set producer and see it all the way through to its release.
Audiences can expect to laugh, to cry happy tears and to fall in love with our central cast of characters. No matter one’s race, gender, sexuality or age, there is something for everyone to connect to in the film, because all of us have families (biological or chosen), and can relate to what happens when an outsider comes into the family unit and changes its dynamic in funny, chaotic & beautiful ways. They can also expect Jonathan Groff to sing, stand-up comic Zarna Garg to impress in her acting debut and our lead Karan Soni to drop the Marvel sidekick shtick and steal your hearts!
It’s hard to express how much it means to me to be part of this film (and not just because it’s my first PGA marked Producer credit). When I first read the play upon which it’s based, I not only felt seen in its depiction of being gay and introducing a partner to one’s family, but I was reminded powerfully of an early relationship my sister Kate had, a relationship that fundamentally informed my understanding of what romantic love is. When we were months from production, Kate passed away suddenly from a cerebral hemorrhage and I was forced to navigate the unfathomable new world without her. Making this film allowed me to keep her close and continue our creative conversation that started long ago (after all, it was Kate who made me watch one of the film’s touchstones Monsoon Wedding and quite honestly could have taught a PhD level course on rom-coms). If not for Kate, I would never have felt as confident that I was the right creative producer to guide this project forward and the film would simply not exist. The most touching & beautiful moment of my career was when our director Roshan, playwright Madhuri and fellow producing team approached me saying that they wanted the film to be dedicated to Kate, which it is in the end credits. So finally being able to share the film widely to the public feels, to me, like a small way to keep Kate’s spirit in the world.
Learn more about Charlie McSpadden in this Duke Entertainment, Media & Arts Network (DEMAN) Q&A from 2022 here.